Has Anyone Noticed He's Not Breathing?
by Bonnie Holmes
Summary: A response to @cumbermalady on Tumblr - What would have happened if John had been too late in 'The Lying Detective' and Culverton-Smith has succeeded in suffocating Sherlock...?


**_Answer to a request by cumbermalady on Tumblr..._**  
 ** _._**

"Murder is a very difficult addiction to handle," spoke Culverton through his crooked gritted teeth. "People don't realise how much work goes into it."  
The malled words were now dipping in and out of Sherlock's ears as his panic rose. He grappled helplessly at the murderer's arm - his murderer's arms. "Stop!" He wanted to scream. "Stop, please, please, stop!" But his lungs were refused to draw the breath he so desperately needed. The drug-weakened detective pushed at the man looming over him with all the energy he had left but Smith only forced himself onto the detective harder, hands smothering him.

"There's always someone desperate about to go missing," Culverton explained, fighting rigidly against Sherlock's flailing limbs. "No one wants to suspect murder if something else is easier to suspect."

The tightness in his chest was becoming too much to bare. Sherlock kicked out but was so dizzied that his legs only became entangled in the crumpled bed sheets restricting him.

You said you'd be there, John! Mary said you'd be there.

"I have to ration myself, you see," breathed Culverton-Smith. He grinned as the fervid zest in Sherlock's pale eyes began to dim. "-Choose the right heart to stop."

Sherlock could feel his sense drifting. He couldn't even recall where he was anymore. Only that John was supposed to be here with him. His sight blurred as his head swam. All he was left with was the whisper of cruel words in his ear, not Culverton's but Mary's: He will be there, Sherlock. He will be there. But as his heart monitor's blaring tone began to bleeping loudly all around him Sherlock knew that his doctor was not going to save him anymore.

…

John burst into the room. The fire extinguisher clattered to the floor loudly as his eyes fell up Sherlock's inert figure sprawled on the bed. His vision went red as Culverton-Smith snapped into an upright position. With a merciless glare, John lunged forward fixing an arm around the throat of Sherlock's nemesis. "What were you doing to him?!" he barked. The doctor yanked the attacker back so far that his feet almost left the floor. Anyone who had looked into the shorter man's eyes would have seen that even the soldier within him was now taken over by a darker force. "What-were you doing?!" He screamed once more, pressing his forearm into Smith's throat. For a moment his gaze flickered upon Sherlock.

His chest wasn't moving.

Heart dropping to his stomach, John thrust Smith at the attending security guard. "Restrain him, now. Do it." He couldn't keep the panic from his voice as he fell at the detective's side. He shook his shoulders. "Sherlock, can you hear me?" Gaining no response, John quickly turned to Sherlock's vitals monitor. It was flashing and blipping several critical warning signs. John immediately snatched up Sherlock's wrist and avidly began searching for a pulse.

"He was in distress!" protested Culverton-Smith for the corner. "I was trying to help him!"  
John grabbed Sherlock's glass of water from the bedside table and threw it viscously across the room. Smith yelped as it shattered at his feet.  
"Get. Him. Out." the doctor growled. The guard quick man-handled Smith out of the door.

John turned his attentions back on Sherlock, the backs of fingers brushing his pale cheek. "Come on, Sherlock, wake up." His pulse was there but it was weak. So very weak. He looked back at Sherlock's monitor. His medication percentage. It was radical. An excess. It was too much. John immediately began yanking the tape off his arm the held a cannula in place. As steadily as he could he removed the needle, placing it on the table. It was then he noticed: Oxygen saturation level. 67%.  
John's hand sprung to beneath Sherlock's nose. He wasn't breathing…

The doctor dropped to his knees and began rooting around the waist high cupboard beside him. Snatching a bag valve from a basket, he quickly got up and placed the mask over Sherlock's face. Pulling the detective into a safer position, John quickly began pumping air out into Sherlock's lungs. He glanced at his watch. One minute. One minute and his lungs should have enough oxygen to work for themselves.

Thirty seconds had passed and Sherlock's body showed no signs of re-animation. Heart thundering in his ears, John pressed his fingers to Sherlock's wrist. There wasn't anything. The breath caught in John's throat. No… He pressed his fingers harder into Sherlock's pulse point. Then into his neck… "Nurse! Nurse!" John's bellowing voice tremered as he shouted. "Nurse!"  
John turned as someone appeared at the door. It was Greg. The Inspector froze as his eyes fell upon his consultant and then upon John.  
"Greg, I need a nurse I need one now." The doctor whispered. Greg fled from the room, leaving John alone once more.

The army medic pressed his fingers once more to the detective's wrists, refusing to believe his previous analysis. "Sherlock, I swear to God, you can't leave me, not now."  
The doctor had abandoned the respirator and began pulling away Sherlock's clothing. Pressing an ear briefly to the detective's rib cage, the doctor began chest compressions, counting each one under his breath, each one delivered with a silent prayer. - He was sniffing back tears when he got to forty.

Greg burst back in the room with a doctor and a nurse. John's words stammered out of him. "He's not breathing. He's not breathing." He repeated desperately. "His heart. - He's not breathing."

The nurses immediately began to flutter into life around the detective sparing only a moment to glance at John who was now was now back working the bag valve. Greg was at his side holding is arm. "John, breath. We'll keep him. He's not going anywhere."  
John shook his head, finally letting the tears escape and slip down his face. "I have no-one without him. This is all my fault."  
"John."  
"This is all my fault." John focused on Sherlock's lips willing them to twitch but they remained pale and still. John buried his face into the crook of his elbow. "Greg, he would be here if it wasn't for me! His dead." John began to slip to the floor, shaking too much for him to control.  
"No, no, John, he's not gone yet." Greg crouched beside him, trying to pull the doctor to his feet. "You need to get up. You need to help him. He's in there somewhere and you're letting him down."

The words echoed as loud as a metal bin beaten with a base ball bat around his head. He's in there somewhere and you're letting him down.

John drew a deep breath, focusing on the floor in front of him, still scattered with all the things he'd yanked out of the cupboard. All the useless bloody bandages and glucose tablets and boxes of Saline that weren't going to keep Sherlock alive. Except it wasn't all useless… John reach out and snatch up an EpiPen.

Adrenaline… Sherlock had been living off of tea and drugs alone for weeks. His body has no energy to breath!

John clambered to his feet, pushing Greg, who had since taken his place, away from his friend. He yanked the mask off of Sherlock's face and shooed the nurses' hands from his chest. They cried out in protest, trying to get past the doctor to continue CRP on the detective. John ignored them, tapping Sherlock's chest until he found the point he needed. With a muttered apology, John stabbed the needle hard into Sherlock's muscle and injected the whole cylinder of clear fluid into him.

He removed it. All was silent. He looked despairingly between his friend's lips and life monitor. "Come on, Sherlock. I'm here." He muttered intently. "I'm here. I'm here. I didn't forget you."

Greg's hand slipped over the doctor's. "John…"  
John shook his head, fresh tears forming in his eyes. "No, no. He'll come through. He will."  
Greg tried to pull the doctor into a hug but John pulled away. "No. I won't be able to live with myself. He's going to- going to live"

Greg pressed John's face into his chest, closing his eyes against his own tears. "John, stop."  
John sobbed silently into the Inspector's shirt. "I can't," he whispered. "I can't." His fist balled the fabric of the D.I's jacket. "I loved him." He breathed. The lightheadedness the doctor felt threatened to render him unconscious. With any luck, he thought, he wouldn't wake up.

John felt himself going weak, the inspectors arms going tight around him. But then he heard it: Sherlock's heart rate monitor blipping once again. John heard Greg gasp. "Sherlock?" He whispered. But then his thoughts escaped him and his vision went black.

…

When John awoke, it was with a start. "Sherlock?!" He sat up in the bed he was now lying in, his head momentarily swimming. As his visioned cleared he saw a hand in his peripheral vision. It was Sherlock's clasped gently in his. The detective was lying on his side, looking at him with bleary mint-green eyes in the beginning of the morning London sunlight streaming in through the room's only window.  
"Are you okay?" he whispered horsey.  
John tried not to choke at the ridiculous question. "Me okay?" John said. "What about you?"  
Sherlock blinked, uncertain of himself. "You came." He whispered.  
John shook his head, emotion constricting his through. He owed the man before him everything and yet he was too frightened to even tell him the truth. "I'm not the man you thought I was, Sherlock." He muttered "You and Mary were both wrong. I'm no hero. I wouldn't have been there. She's why I came. If she hadn't have told me-"  
The detective looked sadly down at the pattern of his blanket. John bit his lip, turning away in his own disgust. But it was as he turned away, he felt Sherlock's grip tighten around his wrist.  
"John?"  
John closed his eyes, swallowing the lump in his throat. "Sherlock, let go. You're better off with out me."  
Sherlock reached out his second hand out, pressing his palm to the broken soldier's face. John opened his eyes, looking at Sherlock unsteadily through the tears.  
Sherlock smiled weakly. "If my current escapades tell me anything, John Watson, it's that I am most definitely not better off without you." He pulled the doctor's hand to him, pressing it to his chest. "I'd be lost without my blogger."  
.When John felt Sherlock's strong heart beat against his hand, he knew that they we both going to be alright.

...

 _ **Tell me what you think. Don't typically write fanfic and didn't spend much time so it's not up to speck but hey ho. Review?**_


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